The Fifth Element: A History
The Following is the entire backstory surrounding the Fifth Element and their origins. The entire story is considered cannon to Magnum Opus but not officially cannon to any other ARGs. The Beginning The Fifth Element: A History This story follows the events of Timeline B. A parallel universe. 1968 - In The Beginning: '''It was a sleepy, little town. Middle class housing. Crime rate was very low. And no murders. Northern-California, 1968. 4 men, 3 women found murdered. Each at different places. Each at different times. Each in different ways. However, the odd thing about it was the code. All of the murders were connected. Killed by one man. No evidence. No suspects. A rogue killer without remourse. Never found. He was the ultimate anonymous. A shadowed figure who poisoned the hearts and minds of northern-Californians. He was the Zodiac . '''1970 – The Followers: The true mission of the Zodiac was never unveiled. This lead to a blind following of many citizens all over North America. They were enthused by his ways. A confident killer who seemed to be unchanged by the sadness he brings. This idealism was glorified by those who seeked it. Eventually the following became so large that cults began to form, but the most prominent of them all had been “Novus Ordo Europa” aka The Order. '' '1982 – The Order : '''The Order, following the Zodiac. They had had studied his killings, his possible beliefs, and his identity. They grew rapidly in numbers, and quickly manifested itself nationwide. They had funds and power and were able to establish camps and solitudes all over the U.S., most of these encampments hid in plain sight. Abandoned buildings and vacant property seemed to be the most popular trend for places to study. They controlled the backhand dealings of our government. Somehow they always were in control. Despite reaching a point of incredible aptitude, they still had no idea what exactly all of this funding was for. The Zodiac’s history had been thoroughly inspected on nearly every aspect…or so they thought. Eventually, one of their cultists had uncovered something much more sinister. Something that the Zodiac had been keeping to himself. They had uncovered his reason for killing. The Zodiac was not a cold-blooded killer, murdering for fun and making a name for him. He was a slave. A slave to something that to our eyes cannot understand. An entity that lurks the darker parts of a human interaction, manifesting itself into anyone who comes in contact with it. The Order was unable to clearly understand just who or what the Zodiac had been bowing to. The deeper the studying went, the stranger this new source of history became. ' 2002 - The Slender Man: The entity eventually was given the name Gorr'Rylaehotep. The Order believed that he was an Egyptian pharaoh-god. Those who witnessed his presence describe him to be a tall and faceless, slender man. Sporting a dark suit most of the time. Some reports claim that his height often changed and even rarer accounts claim that he wields extra tentacle-like appendages protruding from his back. Despite being recognized as this pharaoh-god, his true origins were never unveiled. After exposure to the slender man, many cultists began breaking out in fevers, coughing fits and vomiting. Some even disappeared and would not return for weeks. Electrical technology of any kind was often found damaged after an encounter. It became very clear to the cultists of The Order that this entity would not leave them alone. He became part of their rituals, and eventually pushed fear upon them. The cult began a new process of worshipping and giving rituals for their new overseer. ' 2009 – Marble Hornets (First Video Documentation): '''Apart from The Order, “normal” people such as Alex Kralie (seen in picture) had been unfortunately exposed to the Slender Man during a production of the movie titled “Marble Hornets”. It is unknown when Alex encountered the Slender Man, or if he had been the first in his production crew to come across the entity. Tim Sutton as well experienced symptoms of a slender man encounter. Though the two men showed differing symptoms. Alex appeared to “embrace” the slender man and bonded some form of team with him. Tim, however, showed a great fear towards the slender man and also appeared to take control of his mind in a way never seen before. Tim began sporting a mask and attacked Alex on multiple occasions out of some' psychiatric rage. Jay, another member of the production had been a friend of Alex. Jay operates a YouTube channel sharing the title of the movie Marble Hornets. Jay had learned that Alex had been missing ever since they stopped production for the movie. Jay was given b-roll recordings of the production of Marble Hornets from Alex, near the end of the production in 2006. He never looked through them until he learned of Alex’s disappearance. He uploaded these strange recordings to his YouTube channel and marked them as “Entries”. These entries became viral and were known as the first video documentation of slender man. '''2009 & 2010 – Mutiny in The Order: '''Do to Marble Hornets exposing the entity known as the slender man to the world; The Order plunged into a crisis state. They had questioned how such an event happened, who allowed the slender man to be captured on film? Who angered Gorr'Rylaehotep? The cultists betrayed each other and tried to expose the criminals. It became clear that nearly 10% of The Order had been corrupted by the power of the slender man and have been trying to form a new parliament under “his” new code. The new code suggested that no one in The Order has any executive power, except the almighty overseer (slender man). The other 90% were baffled by this mutiny and the judges of The Order declared to separate themselves completely from these “proxies”. This was new class of slave for the slender man. It seemed that some of those who have come in close contact with the slender man became proxies to him. Obeying his every command out of some blind will. Eventually, a deal was made between the remaining 90% of The Order and rebelling 10%. The Order wanted to avoid bloodshed at all costs, so they “allowed” the rebels to vacate The Order and it’s teachings. The rebels segregated themselves and went off to create a new union of their own, that allowed the new parliament for the devotion to the slender man. This new union was titled: The Collective. '' ''2010 – The Collective : Compared to their predecessors, The Collective started out as a very small union with limited funding. This problem was due to the wild demands of The Collective. Once they established a stable ground to build an organization, they demanded massive, outlandish amounts of money for their “cause”. If the offer was denied by those in the Order who controlled the banks and funds, The Collective members would rob them in any way possible...but the members of The Order were oblivious to the robberies. Since The Order had been in control of government buildings, it was simple for the cult to walk into an M&I bank and rob them dry. To the police and to The Order, no suspicion of a cult arisen. For there would be no reason to assume such a thing. These robberies continued as a routine for some time. No one in The Collective knew where the funds were going to, except for the 7 proxy leaders. These proxies were the personal choice of the overseer and he granted them a plethora of power. Some in the collective’s cult claim that they have supernatural properties such as the slender man. The 7 had plans for building some sort of arcing device. This news broke to the rest of The Collective and the 7 gave word to them of the “new plan”. '2011 – Gearing Up: '''After The Collective’s exposure towards Noah Maxwell, the cult realized that the plan would have to be put into effect as soon as possible. Noah had been yet another YouTuber claiming slender man sightings backed up with video evidence of The Collective. The Collective’s plan to build The Ark was still hazy to most in the cult. The overseer wanted the device made at all costs. Its true purpose was never unveiled until 2012 when the design of the device had been constructed. '''2012 – The Word is Let Out: '''The Order had become very suspicious of their counterpart cult. They initiated to send spies on The Collective to see what they had been up to. Once the rumors spread, there was no stopping the panic. The Order learned of the Ark and declared that the device is too dangerous in the hands of The Collective proxies. There was then a deliberate act of war towards The Collective. Marking them all as the enemy. '''2012 – War: '''The Order realized the power that The Collective held. They needed to take it away from them at all costs. Of course, once the gunfights, assassinations and executions had begun. The retaliation of The Collective was immense. The sadistic ways of the war brought everyone to question, would it ever end? It wasn’t long before the veterans of this cultist-warfare would retire from their old life style. Hundreds left the cults unnoticed. Mostly former members of The Order, and a small amount of The Collective proxies who were able to break free of their slave-lifestyle. These ex-cultist were marked as “the derelicts”. Among them, was a young man named Kai. '- Kai Bakken : '''Kai was a former member of The Order who managed to work his way through the ranks rather quickly. Joining at the age of 13 and befriending others of his age like Jonathan Westphal and Charlie Noel, Kai took up his leadership ability in becoming a detective for The Order. Going on stakeouts and gathering information for The Order. By the age of 16 he reached the level of Arch Bishop. However, Kai denied the duties of Arch Bishop and kept his role as detective until the war became too much for him. He lost many of his comrades while on a mission trying to dismantle a Collective occupied warehouse that had been smuggling money. '''July, 2012 - The Warehouse Operation: '''A Collective agent by the name of Clarice Cambell, was guarding the operations along with 6 other proxies. Once The Order operatives broke in, all hell broke loose. The Collective were trained to kill on sight. A brutal bone-cracking, bloodshed battle took place on the factory’s grounds. Kai, armed with a nightstick killed 2 Collective agents in self-defense. The other 5 attempted to flee, when Charlie captured Clarice and restrained her to be brought back to The Order’s high judgment. The operatives returned beaten and bloodied along with the new prisoner. As Kai and his team exited their vehicles to greet The Order gate-master, a rifle shot rattled their ears. The Collective agent had been hit in the abdomen by an unknown shooter. Amidst the chaos: The Order gate master receives a bullet to the brain from the same concealed riflemen. He dies instantly. Kai’s team scrambles for cover, Kai behind the car with wounded prisoner, while the rest of the team flees into the forest. The team yells back to Kai to run. Kai refuses and insists that the prisoner needed medical attention. “LEAVE THE BITCH! RUN!” Charlie yells to Kai. Kai looks down to the girl. Her blood is pooling on the gravel road and her eyes begin to close. More rifle fire hits the car. Kai panics, and picks her up and cups her in his arms. Kai places Clarice in the back seat and Kai makes his way through the car into the driver's seat. He ducks his head as bullets explodes through his window. He speeds off past the gate keeper’s corpse. He reaches the outpost in less than 5 minutes, to find the entire place burned to a crisp along with The Collective’s symbol over the burnt building. He pulls Clarice out of the backseat, and he looks for the medical cabin which is still intact. He finds 2 dead Order medics inside. He places Clarice on the gurney and Kai is able to remove the bullet from her stomach. He stiches her up and Kai passes out from fatigue. Kai awakens to find himself zip-tied to a radiator in the cabin. Clarice stands above him holding Kai’s machete to his neck. She hovers over him with a teary eyed look. “Wow…so I save your life and this how you repay me?” Clarice backs away from Kai slowly and tosses him a knife to break free, before she stabs the machete in the ground outside the cabin. She disappears into the night. Kai cuts off his restraint and walks outside. Kai takes a look around to realize that his team had left him behind. '''August, 2012 – Kai’s Resignation: '''Kai had been missing from The Order’s records for about a month. The last thing that was left by him was a note hanging on his former study room titled: “My Resignation.” It read, “Dear former brothers and sisters, I can no longer abide to the rules and morals of this order. After seeing death and staring it in the face, I am pleased to give myself the courage to QUIT this cult. The blind delicacies that you worship are idiotic to my new mindset. I do not blame my comrades for leaving behind their officer. For you must do what you must to survive and if it involves leaving behind a brother/comrade/friend…then do away. I’m sorry if you believe that you can keep me here any longer. I am in charge of my own path and with my departure I leave to all lower-members, a trail.” Many younger cultists looked up to Kai as a role model and his note brought them a new light of self-willpower. These recruits left The Order and its ties. This became an epidemic and caused mayhem within The Order. A new law called the “Illegal Defection Act” was put in place that allowed for the killing of anyone willing to defect from The Order. Over 2,000 were killed due to the act. It wasn’t long after these murders that The Order began to crumble. Thousands left and continued to leave. The defection act couldn’t stop it from happening. By September, 2012 The Order had seen 30% drop in cultist population, an all-time low that hit their economy as well. Amidst the chaos, The Collective was gaining more power than ever. Making more money and eventually growing a population equal to the number of cultists in The Order. '''October, 2012 – The New Order: '''As the dust settled, and all those who defected had left. The Order became a shell of its former self. With almost no one left to govern them, there was a scramble for leadership. Those devoted for The Order’s doings took the high-command. They renamed themselves “The New Order”, due to their new agenda to build the device purely known as, The Ark. '''Late October, 2012 – The Fifth Element: '''Kai had been in the shadows for some time. Moving with his family out towards the country of Wisconsin, Kai found protection from any cultists hunting him down. Things had become different and yet, more simple for him. His mind was clear. It wasn’t until late mid-October that Kai was stopped by his old friend, Jonathan had recently left The Order. He had heard of their plans to build the Ark, so he felt that he needed to pass by this information to Kai. Kai knew that it was bad news, the rumors surrounding these arcing machines were all over. Kai felt the need to do something about it. All of it, he wanted to stop the craziness of the cults and their plans to build the arks. But there was no way that he would be able to get near either of the cults again. His resignation was clear on that, but then it hit him. He knew the only way to stop it. To fight fire with fire. Kai thought up “Nightingale” . A mysterious rogue figure talented in combat, skill and cult experience. Something that the cults would fear. This idea grew and became reality. Kai invited Jon, who presumed his alter ego “Swallow” and other ex-cultists from The Order and The Collective, such as Noah Moser soon to be “Finch”. Together, they formed The Fifth Element: The cult to end all cults. But TFE wasn’t a cult, it was a contingency plan. A failsafe to stop horrible things from happening. No one paid attention to them at first. The Collective and The Order had been fighting an endless war an couldn’t afford to fight a small-union of rag-tag ex-cultists. And like birds, TFE snatched up salvage from both sides. Whether it was robbing them or pulling a heist, they found a way to build their contingency. The Fifth Element was a ghost among the other cults. No one seemed to know where they came from and how they operated and who they were. They were invisible. To the cults, TFE was a bunch of nobodies just looking for a fight. People like Noah, Jon and Kai were presumed dead or MIA. And TFE gladly accepted this as reality. They were reborn into a team of extraordinary people capable of changing history. '''Early November, 2012 - Getting Attention: Nightingale’s team grew a reputation after growing +30 recruits and becoming more active. The Order wasn’t happy that TFE was attracting the attention of their cultists. This became quite clear when Charlie Noel found out that Kai Bakken was leading this operation. Being a former friend of Kai’s, Charlie was shocked that Kai had been behind the heists and all. Charlie thought of a plan to deceive and gather information on future plans against The Order while still helping him fight The Collective. Nightingale was shocked to see Charlie show up attempting to join via contacting The Fifth Element. Nightingale allowed him to join because Charlie convinced him that he left The Order and wanted to fight for the same cause. Charlie was then renamed “Crow” in The Fifth Element. Mid November, 2012 – The Event: '''This was it. The Fifth Element had coordinated a plan to strike at the heart of their problems. They were going to capture and destroy The Collective’s completed Ark. According to Crow’s intel, The Order was nowhere near creating an arc without the help and guidance The Collective received from the slender man. The operation required the skill set of every able body on The Fifth Element. Nightingale and Swallow were able to capture intel from a Collective agent. Apparently, a convoy of vehicles were planning to escort a semi-truck holding the Ark to a new, safer area to keep the Ark until final preparations were ready. This is when The Fifth Element would strike. Nightingale, Swallow and Crow orchestrated the plan. 1. Finch and Cardinal would be blocking the road with their truck. They would tell the proxies that they were having trouble with the engine. 2. Nightingale would take position with a hunting rifle waiting for the semi-truck to make a complete stop. 3. Once the first shot is fired, the cab driver is dead. 4. 10 other TFE members would pop out from the side of the road and take out the Collective agents in the other vehicles. 5. Once all hostiles had been handled with, Crow takes over the semi-truck to re-route it for a TFE outpost where Swallow is waiting. 6. The truck arrives; meanwhile Collective reinforcements arrive at the initial ambush area where most of TFE is waiting. Nightingale orders a retreat. The team disperses. Nightingale, Finch and Cardinal make a getaway in the pickup truck while the rest of the team takes the convoy vehicles. No casualties on TFE. Finally, Nightingale reaches camp where they are keeping the Ark. He opens the container to see a large metallic object with electrical wiring hanging all over it. The team removes it from the container. There is a moment of silence as the team stands around it in awe. C4 explosives are places at the base of the machine. Nightingale is handed the detonator. He closes his eyes and clicks in the engage. There is a loud boom followed by a massive burst of light and then --- silence. The team opens their eyes. The Ark had disappeared. Confusion sets in, everyone begins to mutter about what happened. Nightingale feels out of breath, he falls to the ground. Others are missing from the group. “I feel…I feel as if something…went wrong…?..Our two…combined.” Nightingale loses consciences. '''TIMELINE AB - Late November, 2012 - Magnum Opus: '''Kai Bakken awakes from his bed in a cold sweat. “That was a strange dream…” He walks over to a mirror in his upstairs bathroom. In his mind: “I look like shit. Go back to sleep.” He walks over and falls to his bed. He stairs lifelessly into the ceiling stars decorated above him. Across the room, his laptop turns on. He looks up, but is too tired to do anything about it. He falls asleep. The next morning Kai wakes up and makes himself breakfast. He sits down at his laptop with a cup of coffee. While downloading a game off Steam, he notices a strange folder on his computer titled “Your Magnum Opus”. He opens the folder to find hundreds of strange videos, most of them nameless, but some titled “Entry #_”. Kai watched a few of the videos, most of them didn’t make sense. They were of him and his friends talking about random stuff. Kai hadn’t remembered any of the stuff that was going on either. None of the videos made any sense to him, so far to the point that it began to scare him. Amnesia? Possibly. Kai looked into this mystery began posting all of the strange findings on YT. He called his friend Jon Westphal''' over for some help to investigate a warehouse next to his house that he claims has been showing strange activity. Kai then gets e-mail videos from anonymous users. The first one shows footage from his MO folder and asks Kai “if he remembers”. Kai doesn’t understand this, he then develops an idea that the people at the warehouse are somehow connected to the ones who have been sending the videos and that they are “following him”. He embarks on a crusade with Jon one night. They pack flashlights and airsoft guns. Just as they reach the gate, they are honked at by someone in a car parked further onto the warehouse property. Kai and Jon are not able to enter and call it a night. They come back the next morning. Jon had gone off into the warehouse loading bay by himself and Kai followed. Jon calls Kai to tell him that he saw a black pick-up truck drive passed him while he hid in the loading bay. Jon attempted to record the footage with his camera, but was unable to due to technical problems. TIMELINE AB – March, 2013 – Confused Yet?: After “the event” occurred. Time and space were confused. Atoms and molecules rearranged. And the universe that once was, is no longer and had merged with another – our universe. This affected the flow of time and space. While most people were unaffected, the way things had been for centuries were thrown off and mismatched. No one was able to see this, except Kai. Everyone had felt the change, but didn’t think much of it. Nightingale was equal to Kai. Their bodies remained separate for the most part, but their soul had been divided between them. This made both feel oddly sickened and confused. Having an exact replicate of themselves living in the same dimension was painful for both. It came to the point that Nightingale became aware of Kai. Nightingale believed that there was an imposter of him attempting to expose him and the other members of The Fifth Element. Nightingale would eventually plan on ordering a “kill or capture” on this other Kai. He sent Cardinal, a skilled machete swordsman and a well-trusted member in The Fifth Element. End of Book I Category:Story